Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Idea of universal basic income
Mains level: Paper 2- Remuneration to women for domestic work and issues with it
Recently, a political party promised salaries to housewives as a part of its electoral campaign in Tamil Nadu. This led to the debate on the issue. The article deals with the issue.
Salary for housework: Historical background
- Demand for wages against housework was first raised at the third National Women’s Liberation conference in Manchester, England.
- In 2012, the then minister for Women and Child development announced that the government was considering mandating a salary for housework to wives, from husbands.
- The purpose, once again, was to empower women financially and help them live with dignity.
Recognising the value of unpaid domestic work
- Time-use data from 2019 gathered by the National Sample Survey Organisation revealed that only about a quarter of men and boys above six years engaged in unpaid household chores, compared to over four-fifths of women.
- Every day, an average Indian male spends 1.5 hours per day in unpaid domestic work, compared to about five hours by a female.
- Housework demands effort and sacrifice, 365 days a year, 24/7.
Issues with paying for domestic work
- Asking men to pay for wives’ domestic work could further enhance their sense of entitlement.
- It may also put the additional onus on women to perform.
- There is a risk of formalising the patriarchal Indian family where the position of men stems from their being “providers” in the relationship.
Way forward
- Despite a legal provision, equal inheritance rights continue to be elusive for a majority of women.
- More than creating a new provision of salary for housework, we need to strengthen awareness, implementation and utilisation of other existing provisions.
- Starting from the right to reside in the marital home, to streedhan and haq meher, to coparcenary and inheritance rights as daughters and to basic services, free legal aid and maintenance in instances of violence and divorce.
- Women should be helped to reach their full potential through quality education, access and opportunities of work, gender-sensitive and harassment-free workplaces and attitudinal and behaviour change within families to make household chores more participative.
Conclusion
Just like we do not want women to commodify their reproductive services because of their inherently exploitative nature — we have, therefore, banned commercial surrogacy in the country — let us not allow commodification of housework and personal care.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: MSP, Public Procurement System
Mains level: Paper 3- Reasons for farmers concerns with MSP
The article explains the purpose of Minimum Support Price (MSP) and reasons for insecurity in farmers regarding its continuance.
Relation between MSP and time-bound procurement through PPS
- MSP, public procurement system (PPS) and a strict time-bound purchase of output brought to the PPS(through APMCs) form a package deal.
- Take out one aspect, the deal falls apart.
- For example, if you have MSP but not compulsory PPS, the support price becomes redundant.
- If you have MSP and PPS/APMC mandi but not strict time-bound purchase of the product brought to the PPS, the deal will fail.
Purpose of MSP
- At the launch of the Green Revolution, MSP and PPS were designed to assist the country in achieving its goal of food self-sufficiency, which was met by the early Seventies.
- The purpose of MSP and PPS/APMC is now two-fold.
- One, to maintain food self-sufficiency because crop diseases and weather conditions such as droughts.
- The second purpose is to ensure a reasonable, assured income to the farmers.
- The recommendation to dismantle FCI public procurement, made by the Shanta Kumar Committee in its 2015 report, displayed a lack of recognition of the importance of these two purposes.
Issues with the Farm bills
- The government’s assurance that MSP/APMC can co-exist with the big agro-business-controlled private markets is not tenable.
- A farmer who has reached a contract will not be legally allowed to take the product to APMC if the APMC mandi offered him/her a better price.
- The agro-business entity will take the non-compliant farmer to court, where the dispute resolution mechanism is stacked against the farmer due to the structural inequities of legal resources and social-cultural capital.
- The proposed dispute resolution mechanism increases the choice of the trader to trade and not of the farmer to sell.
- The central law will prevail in the private markets, while state laws will prevail in the APMC mandis.
- Two markets with two regulatory frameworks will create conditions for perpetual Centre-state conflicts.
- MSPs are announced for 23 crops but compulsory and timely public procurement, are provided mainly for two crops, wheat and rice, the support price does not work for the remaining 21 crops.
Challenge in defining MSP
- Farmers’ organisations are insisting on the Swaminathan Committee formula of C2+50 per cent.
- The MSP announced by the government is based on the A2+Fl+50 per cent formula.
- Unlike the C2+50 per cent formula, A2+Fl+50 formula does not cover all the costs of farming.
Conclusion
Agrarian reforms that recognise the importance of ecologically and economically sustainable agriculture are an absolute necessity. Such reforms would require more than merely changing the trade emphasis of existing laws. They will involve the creation of inclusive, transparent and well-informed laws compatible with these reforms.
Back2Basics: Understanding the cost formula
- M S Swaminathan committee recommended minimum support prices (MSP) for crops at levels “at least 50 per cent more than the weighted average cost of production”.
- The National Commission on Farmers did not elaborate on what really constituted “weighted average cost of production” in its report submitted in October 2006.
- The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), on the other hand, gives three definitions of production costs: A2, A2+FL and C2.
- A2 costs basically cover all paid-out expenses, both in cash and in kind, incurred by farmers on seeds, fertilisers, chemicals, hired labour, fuel, irrigation, etc.
- A2+FL cover actual paid-out costs plus an imputed value of unpaid family labour.
- C2 costs are more comprehensive, accounting for the rentals and interest forgone on owned land and fixed capital assets respectively, on top of A2+FL.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Data Protection Authority
Mains level: Paper 2- Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 and issues with it
The Personal Data Protection Bill (2019) has several provisions which could have implications for the privacy of an individual. The article examines such provisions and highlights the need for further debate on the Bill.
Evolution of privacy as a fundamental right
- The Supreme Court in MP Sharma v. Satish Chandra (1954) and Kharak Singh v. Uttar Pradesh (1962) had declared that while in certain circumstances the privacy of individuals was to be protected, there was no constitutional right to privacy in and of itself.
- However, in Puttuswamy v India (2017) the Supreme Court accepted privacy as a fundamental right.
- This was an important development.
Rising importance of data
- The rising importance of data has pushed over 80 countries to pass national laws protecting the collection and use of their citizens’ data by companies and the government.
- The DPB will have huge commercial and political consequences for India.
- In India, the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 (DPB) is currently under consideration by a parliamentary committee.
- According to Ernst and Young, emerging technologies in India will create $1 trillion in economic value by 2025.
- Much of this value will be founded on the creation, use, and sale of data, and the DPB will have immense implications as firms scramble to meet new privacy regulations.
Conditions for access to data and issues
- The bill establishes a number of conditions for companies to follow.
- For one, it would require digital firms to obtain permission from users before collecting their data.
- It also declares that users who provide data are, in effect, the owners of their own data.
- So that the users will be able to control the data their online selves produce, and may request firms to delete it, just as European internet-users’ “right to be forgotten”.
- But the bill stipulates that critical or sensitive personal data, related to information such as religion, or to matters of national security, must be accessible to the government if needed to protect national interest.
- Critics have suggested that such open-ended access could lead to misuse.
- Even B N Srikrishna, who chaired the committee that drafted the original bill has also expressed concerns about this provision.
- Other major concern is about Data Protection Authority (DPA).
Concerns about Data Protection Authority
- The bill outlines the establishment of a Data Protection Authority (DPA).
- The DPA will be charged with managing data collected by the Aadhaar programme.
- It will be led by a chairperson and six committee members, appointed by the central government on the recommendation of a selection committee.
- But this selection committee will be composed of senior civil servants, raising questions about the board’s independence.
- The government’s power to appoint and remove members at its discretion also stokes fears about its ability to influence this independent agency.
- Unlike similar institutions, such as the Reserve Bank of India or the Securities and Exchange Board, the DPA will not have an independent expert or member of the judiciary on its governing committee.
Consider the question “Discuss the various provision of Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 for the protection of individual’s privacy. What are the concerns over the various provisions of the Bill?”
Conclusion
The DPB is a unique opportunity for India, a country with some 740 million internet users, to forge a pathbreaking agenda that will act as a standard-setter in the still-developing field of national data protection legislation.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Trends in the various data of NFHS
Mains level: Paper 2- Analysis of NFHS-5 data
The article analyses the data of NHFS-5 and try to factors responsible for the outcomes.
Analysing health and nutrition of child through NHFS-5
- The recently released fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) provide insights into some dimensions of micro-development performance before COVID struck.
- The latest round only has data for 17 states and five Union territories.
- Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are notable exclusions.
- Many of the child-related outcomes are also determined by state-level implementation, therefore neither success nor failure can be attributed to state or the centre alone.
Let’s understand the data
- The NFHS has 42 indicators related to child’s health and nutrition.
- Indicators fall into nine categories and each of these can be divided into outcomes and inputs.
- For example, neonatal, infant and under-5 mortality rates can be thought of as outcomes.
- Similarly, all the nutrition indicators —stunting, wastage, excess wastage, underweight and overweight can also be classified as outcomes.
- In contrast, the post-natal care indicators relating to visits made by health workers and the extent and nature of feeding for the child can be classified as inputs.
Outcomes of the survey
- On the front of wasting (weight for height of children) these is an improvement because even though the gains were marginal, they reversed a negative trend between 2005 and 2015.
- India continues to be successful in preventing child deaths, but the health and nutrition of the surviving, living child has deteriorated, somewhat worryingly.
- India continued to make progress in preventing child-related deaths (neonatal, infants and under-5).
- The pace of improvement in child mortality slowed down relative to the previous 10 years (Fig.1).
- Figure 2 shows the six indicators where outcomes have deteriorated. These all relate to what happens after survival:
- The health (anaemia, diarrhoea, and acute respiratory illness (ARI)) and nutrition (stunting, and overweight) of the child deteriorated between 2015 and 2019.
- The absolute deterioration in health and nutrition indicators must be seen against the fact that they reversed the historic trends of steady improvements.
What explains the outcomes
- Implementation capacity of individual states probably played an important role.
- Sector-specific factors such as changing diets are also implicated.
- A broader deterioration in outcomes hints at the likelihood of a common factor, namely the macro-economic growth environment, which determines employment, incomes and opportunities.
- At the least, it is safe to conjecture that some of these outcomes are inconsistent with the narrative of a rapidly growing economy.
Conclusion
As discussed in Chapter 5 of the Economic Survey of 2015-16, perhaps the next big welfare initiative of the government should be a mission-mode focus on the well-being of the early child (and of course the mother), from the womb to the first five years, which research shows is critical for realising its long run potential as an individual.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Water usage for agriculture in India
Mains level: Paper 3- Need for RD in agriculture
The article highlight the need for more emphasis on agricultural R&D as a solution to the woes of the farmers.
India needs low-input high-output agriculture
- Amid farmers protest against farm acts, the current debates focus mainly on MSP, reducing farmers’ debt liabilities, reducing post-harvest losses, cash transfers and marketing reforms.
- India with entrenched poverty requires low-input, high-output agriculture; low input in terms of both natural resources and monetary inputs.
- Very little attention is being given to reducing the natural resource inputs — most critical being water —and agricultural R&D.
- This cannot be achieved without science and technology.
Following are the areas in which Indian agriculture needs R&D to reduce agriculture inputs
1) Water usage for agriculture
- India receives around 4,000 billion cubic meters (bcm) of rainfall, but a large part of it falls in the east.
- Moreover, most of the rain is received within 100 hours of torrential downpour, making water storage and irrigation critical for agriculture.
- India has one of the highest water usages for agriculture in the world — of the total 761 bcm withdrawals of water, 90.5 per cent goes into agriculture.
- In comparison, China uses 385.2 bcm (64.4 per cent) out of the total withdrawals of 598.1 bcm for agriculture.
- China’s per-unit land productivity in terms of crop production is almost two to three times more.
- The total estimated groundwater depletion in India is in the range of 122-199 bcm .
- The depletion is highest in Punjab, Haryana, and western UP.
2) Increasing the yields of coarse-grain crops and oilseed crops
- Years of intense research on yield increase and yield protection by breeding varieties and hybrids resistant to pests and pathogens have made wheat, rice and maize stable high yielders.
- Environmentalists suggest replacing rice with coarse grain crops — millets, sorghum etc.
- However, the yields of these crops are not comparable to those of wheat and rice even when protective irrigation is available.
- These crops have a serious R&D deficit leading to low yield potential as well as losses to pests and pathogens.
- This leaves us with pulses and oilseeds.
- In the 2017-18 fiscal year, India imported around Rs 76,000 crore worth of edible oils.
- Three oilseed crops (mustard, soybean, and groundnut) are already grown very extensively.
- Soybean and groundnut are legume crops and fix their nitrogen.
- All three crops not only provide edible oils but are also an excellent source of protein-rich seed or seed meal for livestock and poultry.
- Unfortunately, yields of the three crops are stagnating in India at around 1.1 tons per hectare, significantly lower than the global averages.
3) Genetic improvements of crops
- Pests and pathogens can be best tackled by agrochemicals or by genetic interventions.
- A recent global level study on crop losses in the main food security hotspots for five major crops showed significant losses to pests — on average for wheat 21.5 per cent, rice 20 per cent, maize 22.5 per cent, potato 17.2 per cent, and soybean 21.4 per cent.
- India is one of the lowest users of pesticides.
- In 2014, comparative use of pesticides in kilograms per hectare in some select countries/regions is as following: Africa 0.30, India 0.36, EU countries 3.09, China 14.82, and Japan 15.93.
- A more benign method for dealing with pests is through breeding.
- The Green Revolution technologies were based on the effective use of germplasm and strong phenotypic selections.
- Recombinant DNA technologies since the 1970s have brought forth unprecedented opportunities for genetic improvement of crops.
- Since 2000, genomes of all the major crops have been sequenced.
- The big challenge is in the effective utilisation of the enormous sequence data that is available.
- India’s efforts in all three areas are half-hearted.
Way forward
- Over the last 20 years, India has been spending between 0.7 to 0.8 per cent of its GDP on R&D.
- This is way below the percentage of GDP spent by the developing countries and Asia’s rapidly growing economies.
- There are structural issues like lack of competent human resources and lack of policy clarity.
- However, the biggest impediment to agricultural R&D has been overzealous opposition to the new technologies.
Consider the question “India needs low-input, high-output agriculture. This cannot be achieved without science and technology. In light of this, examine how R&D could play a role in the advancement of agriculture in India.”
Conclusion
Maybe the present crisis in agriculture would lead to a greater appreciation of the need for strong public supported R&D in agriculture.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-U.S. relations and area of cooperation
The article explores the area of cooperation for India and the U.S. under a new administration in U.S. amid changing geopolitical realities.
China: Shared cause of concern
- The Biden administration’s approach to India will be shaped by its position towards China.
- There is a bipartisan change in the US’s attitude to China.
- The Biden administration will continue Trump administrations trade policy- reducing the trade deficit, ensuring a level-playing field, keeping a keen eye on technology rivalry etc.
- There are parallels in the concerns of India and the U.S. — invigorating the domestic economy and dealing with a rising rival.
- These concerns can translate into opportunities for both countries.
How India and U.S can convert concerns into opportunities
1) Cooperation in healthcare
- Healthcare is clearly an area that India can play up in bilateral relations.
- The two countries can also work with multilateral agencies across the spectrum of vaccine (including Covid vaccine) development, logistics and distribution.
- India produces around 20 per cent of the global requirement for generic drugs by volume and every third tablet of generics consumed in the US.
- The President-elect has indicated his commitment to providing better and affordable healthcare
- This could be an opportunity for the Indian pharma sector to play a role in reducing health costs of the American consumer.
- India can benefit from advancements in medical technologies, devices, new medicines and R&D capabilities, presenting opportunities for American companies.
2) Job creation through trade and exports
- Biden has set an ambitious target for US-India trade.
- Businesses in both countries are also looking for diversifying their manufacturing supply chains.
- This portends well for the creation of employment in manufacturing.
- An area where strategic considerations and imperatives of job creation converge is defence, especially since India has been designated a Major Defence Partner of the US.
3) Focus on infrastructure in both countries
- For the US, this can mean opportunities in India in transportation, power and other urban amenities.
- The US’s renewed focus on climate change should lead to greater cooperation with India in energy-related areas.
- Cooperation in energy-related areas includes more efficient energy dissemination and management (such as smart grids) to renewable energy technologies.
4) Enhance opportunities in 5G tech
- There is potential to enhance mutual opportunities in the 5G tech sector.
- Increased partnership between the two nations can accelerate the development of technology solutions, promote vendors in the 5G open ecosystem and drive economic growth.
- The two countries should engage in shaping the rules of a new order in this space.
- This also has an important strategic element when seen in the light of developments in the Indo-Pacific as well as China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
5) Multilateralism for cooperation in wider areas
- Once the Biden administration assumes office, we should expect the U.S.’s return to multilateralism.
- The Trans-Pacific Partnership aimed to create a rules-based order that all parties could subscribe to.
- With the ascendancy of the Indo-Pacific paradigm and the Quad and Quad Plus, a successor to the TPP could include a wider canvas.
- For India, this could mean cooperation beyond defence and security, including economics, technology and developments pertaining to the regional order.
Conclusion
Both countries should treat the economic and commercial dimension with as much priority as the strategic dimension. Both governments should embrace the prosperity-creating potential of such an approach.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Post-covid development model
The article discusses the themes of the post-covid world which will be somewhat more aware and mindful of the dangers of global dimension.
Collaborative model and public-private partnership
- A few weeks back, Prime Minister visited the private companies involved with the formulation of the anti-COVID vaccine.
- The PM’s visit was one more reminder of the critical importance of public-private partnerships.
- The PM signalled the government’s receptivity to external expert advice.
- The CEOs reaffirmed their commitment to partnering with the state to help address not just this medical crisis but also the many other social and humanitarian problems.
- The government has appreciated that the model for sustainable development in a post-COVID world must be a collaborative one.
- Businesses will repurpose their goals and look beyond profits.
Working together to deal with the crises of global dimensions
- COVID-19 was not the first, nor will it be the last crisis of global dimensions.
- The threat of global warming, for instance, hangs over our heads.
- Its impact is less immediate and for the present, at least less palpable.
- But it looms and its consequences are existential.
- COVID has offered, it is the tangible evidence that no one entity or group — the state, markets, businesses, entrepreneurs, scientists — can tackle existing and emergent economic and social problems on their own.
- They have to work together to resolve them.
Business uncertainties
- Businesses has been the uncertainty of operating in the post-COVID digital world.
- Every business leader has, in some form or other, expressed three types of uncertainties.
- 1) Is their business facing a hinge moment, necessitating the reimagining and re-engineering of their strategy and product portfolio?
- Or are they witnessing no more than another turn of the business cycle and that, once the vaccine is developed and distributed, the market will return to business as usual?
- Or will conditions necessitate a middle of the road approach: Stay the pre- COVID course but at the same time, speed up the pivot toward a new business model.
- Most business leaders are adopting this third hybrid path.
- The key to corporate success in a digital world in which a distinct incident could influence it, is the capability of leaders to think out of the box and to handle the unexpected.
- Financial, technological and human resources will be necessary, but they will not be sufficient.
Consider the question “The post-covid development model must be based on the cooperation underscored by the public-private partnership as the challenges that could emerge are not possible to be tackled by any on entitiy. Comment”
Conclusion
COVID has “obliterated the one remaining obstacle to a digital future — human attitudes”. Covid forced them to adopt and adapt. The challenge for our business leaders will be to navigate a pathway that sustains the benefits of these tools but without deepening the existing social and economic inequalities. Life is not digital for millions in our country.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CDS and Department of Military Affairs
Mains level: Paper 3- Creation of Theatre Commands and issues with it
The article examines issues of national security like the recent creation of a Department of Military Affairs (DMA) and a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and also some focus areas like Threatre Command.
Understanding the significance of DMA and CDS
- Through the creation of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), the management of the armed forces, so far which was assigned to the civilian Defence Secretary, was brought under a military officer, the CDS.
- The designation of CDS as Secretary DMA made him the first military officer to be recognised as a functionary of the Government of India (GoI).
- With the DMA is now a part of the GoI, it would aid the resolution of organisational, hierarchical and financial issues faced by the military.
Recent steps taken by DMA
- The responsibility for accruing savings to fund defence expenditure has been placed on the DMA.
- DMA has floated two schemes aimed at reducing the defence pensions bill.
- One penalises officers seeking early release from service and another envisages a three-year “Tour of Duty” for jawans.
- Issues with these ideas:
- Penalising officers for early release is likely to harm morale.
- “Tour of Duty” will degrade the military’s combat-capability in today’s technology-intensive battle-space.
- The need here is that DMA must focus on military matters and leave the plans of financing national defence to finance ministry or the Niti Aayog. It will better serve it’s purpose.
Another area of needed reform – Theatre Command
- Theatre Commands stands for jointness and integration in the Indian military are varying degrees of synergy and cross-service cooperation between the military wings of Indian armed forces.
- Objectives of the creation of theatre command should be:
- To hand over the military’s warfighting functions to the Theatre Commanders, while retaining the support functions with service HQs.
- To combine India’s 17 widely-dispersed, single-service Commands into four or five mission/threat-oriented, geographically contiguous “Joint” or “Theatre Commands”.
- To place the appropriate warfighting resources of all three services directly under the command of the designated Theatre Commanders; and
- To achieve efficiency/economy by pooling of facilities and resources of the three services.
Advantages of Theatre Commands
- The Theatre Commanders and their staff will be trained and groomed in jointness.
- With that jointness, they will be able to plan operations and to employ land, maritime and air forces, regardless of the service to which they belong.
- For this to happen, radical changes are required in the content of our system of professional military education.
- The Theatre Commander will also have the benefit of advice from commanders representing each service.
Issues with Theatre Commands
- Two thorny issues are the chain of command of the Theatre Commanders and the relationship of the CDS (or his equivalent) with the service Chiefs.
- To avoid over-concentration of power in any single military functionary, the system followed by the US ensures that the chain of command runs from the President to the Secretary (Minister) of Defence and then, directly to the Theatre Commander.
- In India, the peacetime management of the armed forces is left to the MoD and the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC).
- However, during war, strategic guidance to the military, has always come from the PM.
- In the system of higher defence under implementation, ideally, the Defence Minister needs to be brought into the command/operational chain of the Theatre Commanders, with the CDS acting as his adviser.
- Due to frequency of elections and intensity of politics in India that no Defence Minister has had the time or inclination to devote his/her undivided attention to complex national security issues.
Consider the question “Examine the implications of the creation of Theatre Commands. What are the challenges in its creation.”
Conclusion
India’s military reforms are complex, the GoI needs to seriously consider the constitution of a Parliamentary Committee, with military advisers, to oversee and guide this transformational process.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NSR
Mains level: Paper 2- Melting of Arctic ice cap and its geopolitical implications
Melting of the ice in the Arctic region has as much impact on the geopolitics as it has on the environment. The article explains in detail the geopolitics involved.
Melting of Arctic ice and its impact on climate
- Arctic region is warming up twice as fast as the global average.
- The ice cap is shrinking fast — since 1980, the volume of Arctic sea ice has declined by as much as 75 percent.
- The loss of ice and the warming waters will affect sea levels, salinity levels, and current and precipitation patterns.
- The Tundra is returning to the swamp, the permafrost is thawing, sudden storms are ravaging coastlines and wildfires are devastating interior Canada and Russia.
- The rich biodiversity of the Arctic region is under serious threat.
- These changes are making the survival of Arctic marine life, plants, and birds difficult while encouraging species from lower latitudes to move north.
- The Arctic is also home to about 40 different indigenous groups, whose culture, economy, and way of life are in danger of being swept away.
Opportunities in the melting of the Arctic
- The Northern Sea Route (NSR) which connects the North Atlantic to the North Pacific through a short polar arc was once not open for navigation.
- The melting ice has now made it a reality and a trickle of commercial cargo vessels have been going through every summer since the last decade.
- The opening of the Arctic presents huge commercial and economic opportunities, particularly in shipping, energy, fisheries, and mineral resources.
- Oil and natural gas deposits, estimated to be 22 percent of the world’s unexplored resources, mostly in the Arctic ocean, will be open to access along with mineral deposits.
Challenges in exploiting opportunities
- Navigation conditions are dangerous and restricted to the summer.
- There is a lack of deep-water ports, a need for ice-breakers, a shortage of workers trained for polar conditions, and high insurance costs.
- Mining and deep-sea drilling carry massive costs and environmental risks.
- Unlike Antarctica, the Arctic is not a global common and there is no overarching treaty that governs it, only the UN Convention of Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
- Large parts of it are under the sovereignty of the five littoral states — Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark (Greenland) and the US — and exploitation of the new resources is well within their rights.
Geopolitics of the Arctic
- Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark have put in overlapping claims for extended continental shelves.
- The US, not a party to UNCLOS, is unable to put in a formal claim but is under pressure to strengthen its Arctic presence.
- For the present, Russia is the dominant power, with the longest Arctic coastline, half the Arctic population, and a full-fledged strategic policy.
- Russia anticipates huge dividends from commercial traffic including through the use of its ports, pilots, and ice-breakers.
- China, playing for economic advantage, has moved in fast, projecting the Polar Silk Road as an extension of the BRI, and has invested heavily in ports, energy, undersea infrastructure, and mining projects.
What are the concerns for India
- India’s extensive coastline makes it vulnerable to the impact of Arctic warming on ocean currents, weather patterns, fisheries, and most importantly, our monsoon.
- Scientific research in Arctic developments, in which India has a good record, will contribute to our understanding of climatic changes in the Third Pole — the Himalayas.
- The strategic implications of an active China in the Arctic and it’s growing economic and strategic relationship with Russia are self-evident and need close monitoring.
Way forward
- India has observer status in the Arctic Council, which is the predominant inter-governmental forum for cooperation on the environment and development (though not the security) aspects of the Arctic.
- India should leverage its presence in Arctic Council for a strategic policy that encompassed economic, environmental, scientific, and political aspects.
Consider the question “Melting of the Arctic opens the door for geopolitical game in the region and India cannot be immune to its implications. In the context of this, examine the developments in the region and how it impacts India’s interests?”
Conclusion
India must strive to protect its interest and strive for strategic policy for the region.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NEP 2020
Mains level: Paper 2- Regulation of higher education through single regulator
The article deals with the idea of single regulator for higher education in the country and the challenges it could fece.
Recommendations for regulation of higher education
- Regulatory bodies came up in response to the rapid growth of private participation since the 1980s.
- Due to multiplicity of regulatory bodies in higher education, nearly all advisory panels appointed since 2005 have been asked for a single regulator.
- National Knowledge Commission (NKC) concluded in 2007 that the plethora of agencies attempting to control entry, operation, intake, price, size, output and exit had rendered the regulation of higher education ineffectual.
- The NKC recommended the setting up of an overarching Independent Regulatory Authority in Higher Education (IRAHE).
- A major concern of the Yash Pal Committee constituted in 2009 was compartmentalisation of academia.
- To promote such a dialogue, the Yash Pal committee recommended the creation of an apex body called the National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER).
- TSR Subramanian committee in 2016 proposed an Act for setting up an Indian Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE) to subsume all existing regulatory bodies in higher education.
- The draft national policy presented by the Kasturirangan Committee in 2019 proposed a National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA) as a common regulatory regime for entire higher education sector.
- The draft NEP 2020 proposed a Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog (RSA) to coordinate, direct and address inter-institutional overlaps and conflicts.
The regulatory regime under NEP 2020
- NEP 2020 has now a single regulator for all higher education barring medical and law education.
- It envisages an overarching Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), with four independent verticals comprising the National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC), the National Accreditation Council (NAC), the Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) and the General Education Council (GEC).
- The University Grants Commission (UGC) is to become HEGC while the other regulatory bodies will become professional standard setters.
Fragmented regulation of medical education to continue
- NEP-2020 provides for separate regulation for medical education.
- But it envisions healthcare education as an inter-disciplinary system.[Allopathic student to have a basic understanding of Ayurveda, Yoga etc and vice-versa]
- Multiple regulators in health education include the National Commission for Homoeopathy (NCH) and the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (NCISM) and continuation of the Dental Council of India (DCI), Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) and the Indian Nursing Council (INC),
- Thus, making medical education inter-disciplinary would be difficult due to multiple regulators.
Lessons from the governance of medical education
- The above example demonstrate the difficulty in designing a single regulatory framework to take care of the domain-specific needs of even within healthcare education.
- But if accepted as a principle, it has the potential to delay, if not derail, the idea of a single regulator.
- And should that actually happen, the idea of reining in the regulators might mean abandoning the idea of regulation of regulators.
Issues with the single regulator proposed in NEP 2020
- The regulatory architecture proposed in the NEP is far too monolithic for a system of higher education serving a geographically, culturally and politically diverse country like ours.
- Even in the matter of privatisation, there is enormous diversity of players and practices.
- Historically too, private participation in the running of colleges has not followed a single pattern.
- To imagine that a uniform structure called Board of Governors can serve all different kinds of institutions across the country is flawed.
- Such a vision calls for better appreciation of what exists, no matter how worrisome a condition it is in.
Consider the question “What are the challenges in the regulation of higher education in the country? What are the concerns with the idea of single regulator for the regualtion of higher education in country?”
Conclusion
Before proceeding with the single regulator, the government need to pay attention to the issue of diversity in various aspects in the country.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CrPC provisions
Mains level: Paper 2- Reduction in the time for investigation and issues with it
Andhra Pradesh’s Disha Bill of 2019 seeks to reduce the time period for investigation of some crimes to seven days. Such a move could have several consequences. The article deals with that issue.
State governments reducing the period of investigation
- The proposed Maharashtra Shakti Act of 2020 will have a provision to complete the investigation within 15 days.
- Maharashtra has taken cur from the Andhra Pradesh’s Disha Bill of 2019.
- Disha mandated completion of investigation within seven working days for offenses such as harassment of women, sexual assault on children, and rape, where “adequate conclusive evidence” is available.
- The interpretation of “adequate conclusive evidence” by the police shall remain a problem.
What are the CrPC provisions?
- The Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) provides that investigations relating to offenses punishable with imprisonment up to 10 years must be completed within 60 days.
- For offenses with higher punishment (including rape) the time limit is of 90 days of detaining the accused, else he or she shall be released on bail.
- To speed up the process, the CrPC was amended in 2018 and the period of investigation was reduced from 90 to 60 days for all cases of rape.
Factors that decide the time required
- Generally, the time of investigation depends on several factors like the severity of the crime, the number of accused persons and agencies involved.
- This is besides the fact that in many cases of rape, the victim remains under trauma for some time and is not able to narrate the incident in detail.
- The speed and quality of investigation also depend on whether a police station has separate units of investigation and law and order.[ a long-pending police reform]
- It also depends on the number of available IOs and women police officers, and the size and growth of the FSL and its DNA unit.
Consider the question “Examine the reasons for the high crime rate in India? Recently, some state governments have reduced the duration for the investigation of crime. How such move could impact the investigation?”
Conclusion
Setting narrow timelines for investigation creates scope for procedural loopholes that may be exploited during the trial. Therefore, instead of fixing unrealistic timelines, the police should be given additional resources so that they can deliver efficiently.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Agreement on Agriculture
Mains level: Paper 3- Challenges of farm subsidies and declining farm incomes
The article examines the reasons for declining farm incomes and the contribution of farm subsidies.
Contribution of agriculture
- India’s agriculture, which also supports the rural workforce, was, forever, living beyond its means.
- In 1950-51, agriculture’s share in the country’s GDP was 45%, the share of the workforce dependent on it was close to 70%.
- Today, agriculture’s share in GDP is below 16%, but almost 50% of the country’s workforce depends on this sector.
- The squeeze on the agricultural sector becomes even more evident from its terms of trade vis-à-vis the non-agricultural sectors.
- Agriculture has been facing adverse terms of trade over extended periods since the 1980s, and even during the phases when the terms of trade have moved in its favour, for instance in the 1990s and again since 2012-13, there was no distinct upward trend.
Reason for fall in farm incomes: falling investment
- The decline in farm incomes was triggered by growing inefficiencies.
- This decline, in turn, was caused by a lack of meaningful investment in agriculture.
- The share of this sector in the total investment undertaken in the country consistently fell from about 18% in the 1950s to just above 11% in the 1980s.
- In the most recent quinquennium for which data are available (2014-15 to 2018-19), the average share of agriculture was 7.6%.
India’s dismal performance in term of yields of major crops
- If one ranks countries in terms of their yields in wheat and rice — India’s two major crops — the country’s ranks were 45 and 59, respectively, in 2019.
- This ranking would go down sharply if the areas recording high yields, such as Punjab and Haryana, are excluded.
- In other words, for farmers in most regions of the country, it is an uphill battle for survival amid low yields.
Need for coherent policy for agriculture
- The lack of a coherent policy for agriculture must surely be regarded among the most remarkable failures of the governments in post-Independence India.
- Compare this failure with the United States, with less than 2% of its workforce engaged in agriculture, has been enacting farm legislations every four years since the Agricultural Adjustment Act was enacted in 1933.
- These policies comprehensively address the needs of the farm sector through proactive support from the respective governments.
Issue of the farm subsidies in India
- The subsidies are the price that the country pays for the failure of the policymakers to comprehensively address the problems of the farm sector.
- Wanton distribution of subsidies without a proper policy framework has distorted the structure of production and, consequently, undesirable outcomes in terms of excessive food stockpiling.
- And, yet, the fundamental ills of Indian agriculture are not adequately addressed.
- Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are expected to notify their agricultural subsidies as a part of their commitment under the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA).
- India’s latest notification, for 2018-19, shows that the subsidies provided were slightly more than $56 billion.
- In most of the recent years, the largest component of India’s subsidies ($24.2 billion, or 43% of the total) is provided to “low income or resource-poor farmers”, a terminology that the AoA uses.
- However, the designation of this category of farmers is left to individual members.
- India has notified that 99.43% of its farmers are low income or resource-poor.
- According to the agricultural census conducted in 2015-16, these are the farmers whose holdings are 10 hectares or less.
- Thus, almost the entire farm sector comprises economically weak farmers.
Comparing subsidies given by various countries
- America provided $131 billion in 2017 and the EU, nearly €80 billion (or $93 billion) in 2017-18.
- Instead of absolute numbers; the ratios of subsidies to agricultural value addition for the three countries give a much better picture.
- Thus, for 2017, India’s farm subsidies were 12.4% of agricultural value addition, while for the U.S. and the EU, the figures were 90.8% and 45.3%, respectively.
- This then is the reality of farm subsidies that India provides.
Consider the question “Indian agriculture has been contributing beyond its means since Indian independence. However, agri incomes have shown a gradual decline. What are the reasons for such a decline? How far has farm subsidies succeeded in solving the low-income problem?”
Conclusion
India needs a comprehensive Agri policy to deal with the distortion created by the subsidies.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Paris Agreement
Mains level: Paper 3- Climate change policies and issues with them
The article highlights the issues with the current climate policies which are centred on the inequality.
Inequality and climate change
- Inequity is built into the climate treaty, which considers total emissions, size, and population, making India the fourth largest emitter.
- According to the United Nations, the richest 1% of the global population emits more than two times the emissions of the bottom 50%.
- .China, with four times the population of the U.S., accounts for 12% of cumulative emissions.
- India, with a population close to that of China’s, for just 3% of cumulative emissions that lead to global warming.
- In an urbanized world, two-thirds of emissions arise from the demand of the middle class for infrastructure, mobility, buildings, and diet.
- Well-being in the urbanized world is reflected in saturation levels of infrastructure.
- Growth in the developed countries is consumption-driven not production driven.
- The vaguely worded ‘carbon neutrality’, balancing emitting carbon with absorbing carbon from the atmosphere in forests is a triple whammy for latecomers like India.
- Such countries already have less energy-intensive pathways that will not encroach on others’ ecological space, a young population, and are growing fast to reach comparable levels of well-being with those already urbanized and in the middle class.
What changes are required in the policies
- At present, the focus is on physical quantities which indicates effects on nature.
- The solutions require analysis of drivers, trends, and patterns of resource use.
- This anomaly explains why the link between well-being, energy use, and emissions is not on the global agenda.
- Modifying unsustainable patterns of natural resource use and ensuring comparable levels of well-being are societal transformations.
- New thinking must enable politics to acknowledge transformational social goals and the material boundaries of economic activity.
India’s unique national circumstances
- India must highlight its unique national circumstances.
- For example, the meat industry, especially beef, contributes to one-third of global emissions.
- Indians eat just 4 kg of meat a year compared to those in the European Union who eat about 65 kg.
- Also to be noted is the fact that the average American household wastes nearly one-third of its food.
- Transport emissions account for a quarter of global emissions.
- Transport emissions are the symbol of Western civilization and are not on the global agenda.
- Rising Asia uses three-quarters of coal drives industry and supports the renewable energy push into cities.
- India, with abundant reserves and per capita electricity use that is one-tenth that of the U.S., is under pressure to stop using coal.
Way forward
- India has the credibility and legitimacy to push an alternate 2050 goal for countries currently with per capita emissions below the global average.
- These goals should include well-being within ecological limits, the frame of the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as multilateral technological knowledge cooperation around electric vehicles, energy efficiency, building insulation, and a less wasteful diet.
Conclusion
Emissions are the symptom, not the cause of the problem. India, in the UN Security Council, must push new ideas based on its civilizational and long-standing alternate values for the transition to sustainability.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Provisions in the act
Mains level: Paper 3- Provisions in the new farm laws and their purpose
Some provisions of the new farm laws are opposed by the farmers. The article explains the utility of these provisions.
Major objections to farm laws
- The first objection is that the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC) will be eventually closed,
- The second objection is that Minimum Support Prices (MSP) will be stopped,
- The third fear is that corporates will take over the agriculture trade, and farmers’ land will be taken over by powerful corporates.
Why reforms were needed
- The gap between the agri-income of a farmer and that of a non-agriculture worker increased from ₹25,398 in 1993–94 to ₹1.42 lakh in 2011-12.
- Aggregate food demand has fallen short of domestic production necessitating the export of a large quantity to prevent domestic prices from falling very low.
- India is sitting on an excess stock of 60 lakh tons of sugar and nearly 72 million tons of extra buffer stock of wheat and rice which is causing a huge drain on fiscal resources.
- India’s agri-exports are facing difficulty, imports are turning attractive as domestic prices are turning much higher.
- Rural youth are looking for jobs outside agriculture and there is a serious problem of unemployment in the countryside.
- There are numerous instances of market failure to the detriment of producers and consumers.
- This is turning farmers to look at the government for remunerative prices through MSP for most agricultural products.
- The growth rate in agriculture is driven by heavy support through various kinds of subsidies and output price support.
- These costs and losses and subsidies will take away most of the tax revenue of the central government.
3 Provisions and their utility
1) Relation between MSP and APMC
- APMC has nothing to do with the payment of the MSP.
- The necessary and sufficient conditions for the MSP are procurement by the government, with or without the APMC.
- Experience shows that even after fruits and vegetables were de-notified from the APMC, they continued to arrive at APMC mandis in large quantities while farmers got additional options.
- The protesting farmers have raised concerns to keep the level-playing field for the APMC and private players, and the government has shown agreement to address this fully.
2) Criteria for traders
- Protesting farmers are also opposing the provision of the simple requirement of a PAN card for a trader.
- After having a PAN card, even a farmer can go for trading, his son can do agri-business and other rural youth can undertake purchases of farm commodities for direct sale to a consumer or other agribusiness firms.
- If stringent criteria such as bank guarantee, etc. are included in the registration, then the spirit of the new law to facilitate farmers and rural youth to become agribusiness entrepreneurs will be lost.
3) Mistaking contract farming with corporate farming
- Critics and protesting farmers are mixing contract farming with corporate farming.
- The new Act intends to insulate interested farmers (especially small farmers), against market and price risks.
- The Act is voluntary and either party is free to leave it after the expiry of the agreement.
- It prohibits the transfer, sale, lease, mortgage of the land or premises of the farmer.
- The Act will promote diversification, quality production for a premium price, export, and direct sale of produce, with desired attributes to interested consumers.
- It will also bring new capital and knowledge into agriculture and pave the way for farmers’ participation in the value chain.
Conclusion
The policy reforms undertaken by the central government through these Acts are in keeping with the changing times and requirements of farmers and farming. If they are implemented in the right spirit, they will take Indian agriculture to new heights and usher in the transformation of the rural economy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- The possibility of three-front war
The possibility of a two-front war has been debated for long in the Indian security establishment. However, the Galwan valley incident has added an urgency to that possibility.
Two front situation
- In the Indian military’s thinking, while China was the more powerful, the chance of a conventional conflict breaking out was low.
- The Chinese intrusions in Ladakh in May this year, the violence that resulted from clashes have now made the Chinese military threat more apparent and real.
- This comes at a time when the situation along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan has been steadily deteriorating.
- Between 2017 and 2019, there has been a four-fold increase in ceasefire violations.
- The larger challenge for India’s military would come if the hostilities break out along the northern border with China.
- In such a situation, it is unlikely that Pakistan would initiate a large-scale conflict to capture significant chunks of territory as that would lead to a full-blown war between three nuclear-armed states.
China-Pakistan relationship
- China has always looked at Pakistan as a counter to India’s influence in South Asia.
- There is a great deal of alignment in their strategic thinking.
- Military cooperation is growing, with China accounting for 73% of the total arms imports of Pakistan between 2015-2019.
- It would, therefore, be prudent for India to be ready for a two-front threat.
The dilemma for India: In resources and strategy
- It is neither practical nor feasible to build a level of capability that enables independent warfighting on both fronts.
- A major decision will be the quantum of resources to be allocated for the primary front. This is the dilemma of resources.
- If a majority of the assets of the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force are sent towards the northern border, it will require the military to rethink its strategy for the western border.
- This is the second dilemma.
- Even though Pakistan may only be pursuing a hybrid war, should the Indian military remain entirely defensive?
- Adopting a more offensive strategy against Pakistan could draw limited resources into a wider conflict.
Way forward
- We need to develop both the doctrine and the capability to deal with this contingency.
- Capability building also requires a serious debate, particularly in view of the country’s economic situation.
- We need to focus on future technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, cyber, electronic warfare, etc.
- The right balance will have to be struck based on a detailed assessment of China and Pakistan’s war-fighting strategies.
- Diplomacy has a crucial role to play.
- India would do well to improve relations with its neighbors so as not to be caught in an unfriendly neighborhood.
- The engagement of the key powers in West Asia, including Iran, should be further strengthened.
- Relationship with Moscow should not be sacrificed in favor of India-United States relations given that Russia could play a key role in defusing the severity of a regional gang up against India.
- Political outreach to Kashmir aimed at pacifying the aggrieved citizens would help in easing the pressure from the western front.
Consider the question “India faces the possibility of a two-front war. What strategy India should follow to deal with such a challenge?”
Conclusion
A politically-guided doctrine, comprehensive military capability, and exploring other options will help to deal with the China-Pakistan threat.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Challenges ahead of India in 2021 on foreign policy and economic front
The article deals with the challeges India has to deal with in 2021 on the various front like foreign policy and economy.
Major challenge of 2020
- The COVID-19 pandemic, which embraced every segment of Indian society was the most insidious threat.
- Since April, India has confronted an unprecedented situation on the border with China in eastern Ladakh.
- Ever since, the border has remained live; as of now there is no end in sight.
- Chinese behaviour at the border has led to a grave hiatus in India-China relations.
- Internal problems such as Naxalite violence and Jammu and Kashmir endured during much of 2020.
- The economy is in recession. India has slipped further down the scale in the Human Development Index.
- Slippages have occurred in the Global Economic Freedom Index.
How India should deal with the challenges ahead
1) China challenge and foreign policy
- In foreign policy India must not remain content or satisfied with the current stand-off with China in the Ladakh sector.
- The conflict with China is enabling many of its neighbours to play China against India.
- So, India should think of what better options are available to it to resolve that conflict
- To tackle China, India must come up with a whole new paradigm of ideas on which further actions can be formulated.
2) State of the economy
- India must seek to enhance its competitive advantage vis-a-vis other nations.
- India should focus on export-oriented economic strategy instead of looking inward to enlarge its economy.
- India should enhance its export capacity.
- India’s strength lies in its diversity, and its ability to utilise all available opportunities.
- The other pressing challenge in 2021 would be job creation for the youth, who are India’s most abiding asset.
- The government must take urgent steps to set right the disruptions in the labour market caused by the pandemic.
- Creating new jobs in new industries should be a critical requirement.
- Stimulating demand would ensure growth in job opportunities, and this should go hand in hand with this task.
- The importance of such measures must not be underestimated.
3) Restoring confidence in constitutional practices
- The government to restore confidence in constitutional proprieties, practices and principles.
- There is a crisis of confidence which is affecting the body politic.
- The starting point would be effecting an improvement in Centre-State relations, particularly between Centre and States.
- As digital technology advances, concerns that an unduly centralised Central government could use this to further reduce the independent authority of States will again need to be dispelled.
- Effective cooperation between the Centre and the States must be restored as early as possible to instil confidence about India’s democratic future.
Consider the question “What are the challenges ahead for Indian economy in the wake of economic disruption caused by the pandemic? Suggest the way to deal with these challenges.”
Conclusion
As 2020 comes to a close, it might be worthwhile to take a hard look at these issues to ensure that 2021 does not become another wasted year.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Relation between inequality and inflation
Mains level: Paper 3- Rising inequality in the economic recovery
As Indian economy recovers from the economic disruption caused by the pandemic, there are dangers of rising inequality and cosequently the rising inflation. The article deals with these issues.
3 features of Indian recovery
- 1) The number of new cases has fallen while the fatality rate continues to drop.
- 2) India has rolled out one of the smallest fiscal support packages globally, with central government spending flat so far this year.
- 3) Inflation is now a big problem, with consumer prices above the 6 per cent tolerance level for the past eight months.
Consequences of low fiscal spending
- It may seem that India is back on the path to recovery.
- But the low level of fiscal spending could leave behind other problems, such as rising inequality.
- Although, in India there was a focus on vulnerable section, there were some misses, such as the urban poor being left out, and the overall outlay was small.
- For instance, demand for the rural employment guarantee programme continues to outstrip supply.
- There is the rise in inequality between large and small firms, which is likely to be felt by individual employees.
- Large firms were helped by cost-cutting, low interest rates, access to buoyant capital markets and increased spending in the formal economy probably helped.
- The smaller listed firms did not do as well.
- Small firms are more labour intensive than large firms.
- If small firms do poorly, it impacts a large number of people.
- All this could impact demand over time.
- Rising inequality could stoke inflation (in services particular).
- Consumption patterns show that the rich in India tend to consume more services than the poor.
- And rising inequality could, therefore, stoke inflation.
Possibility of services inflation
- 1) As a vaccine comes into play, there could be a release of pent-up demand for high-touch services.
- 2) As large firms and their employees do relatively well, they are likely to demand more services, stoking prices.
- 3) Many service providers did not do a regular annual price reset in 2020, so they may raise prices to cover the two years once demand picks up.
- If inflation does become persistent and leads to tighter monetary policy, that could weigh on growth over time.
Way forward
- To control inflation in 2021, the RBI may have to take steps such as:-
- 1) Gradually drain the excess liquidity in the banking sector,
- 2) Provide a floor for short-term rates, which have fallen below the reverse repo rate.
- 3) Narrow the policy rate corridor by raising the reverse repo rate.
- A quicker exit from loose monetary policy could become another area where India differs from the world.
Consider the question “What are the consequences of economic recovery in the wake of pandemic? Suggest the ways to deal with these consquences.”
Conclusion
Putting all of this together, it seems India will come full circle in 2021. For a while it was worried more about weak growth than high inflation. But as growth recovers, inflationary concerns could reappear.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 15 and 16
Mains level: Paper 2- Reservation and issues related to it
The Supreme Court in recent judgement in Saurav Yadav Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh made it clear that reservation and merit are not mutually exclusive. The article deals with this issue.
Vertical Vs. Horizontal reservation
- Articles 15(4) and 16(4) enable vertical reservation based on slotting the population in terms of SC, ST, OBC, and General Category.
- But there is also a class of reservations that cuts across all these categories and are referred to as horizontal reservation.
- Horizontal reservation includes a reservation for women differently-abled persons, freedom fighters, army veterans, etc.
Specifying the relationship between horizontal and vertical reservation
- In cases like Anil Kumar Gupta v/s State of Uttar Pradesh, the Court had made it clear that horizontal reservation ought to be generally understood in compartmentalized terms: recognition of inequalities within each vertical category.
- In a particular case, candidates were excluded from competing from the General Category positions even though they have scored more, simply because they were OBC.
- However, some state governments are trying to use the open category seats as a quota for general category candidates.
- The High Courts had been giving contrary directions: Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh excluded reserved category women for consideration in the general category.
- Rajasthan and Gujarat, amongst others, included them.
- The Supreme Court, in a three-judge bench, ruled against the UP government and clarified the relationship between horizontal and vertical reservations.
Analyzing the judgment
- The judgments reiterate the principle that groups eligible for horizontal reservation cannot be excluded from the open category seats because they are from other vertically reserved category communities, like SC or OBC.
- Women from all categories are eligible to be considered for the open category.
- It also made it clear that the open category seats are not meant to be a quota for the non-reserved categories.
Merit Vs. Reservation
- The Court has often contrasted merit with reservation.
- But this has always been a mistaken view of the relationship between merit and reservation.
- In principle, reservation is an instrument for identifying merit in individuals from historically marginalized communities.
- The Court is saying that by excluding the adjustment of OBC women who had scored higher against general category seats, the UP government was ironically using the General Category to exclude meritorious candidates.
- When the Court is using the term merit, it is simply pointing out that certain selection criteria are being used.
- Such selection criteria are also within particular reserved categories: which is also a function of selection criteria, in this case, marks.
- From this point of view, even those who advocate reservation do not fully give up on the meritocratic criteria of selection — they just apply it differentially.
- What the Court was concerned with is fairness in the application of the selection criteria within the overall framework of reservation.
Conclusion
What the court is trying to say something more interesting: Members of the reserved category must be fully considered as falling under the rubric of being potentially meritorious.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 356
Mains level: Paper 2- Misuse of article 356
Article 356 and the word ‘otherwise’ in it has led to the recent Andhra Pradesh High Court order. The order raises several questions. The article deal with this issue.
Controversial High Court order
- Recently the Andhra Pradesh High Court directed the Andhra Pradesh government to come prepared to argue on the ‘breakdown of constitutional machinery in the state’.
- The order opens up the possibility of use or even misuse of Article 356 by the judiciary.
- The Supreme Court of India has stayed the order.
- However, we need to go deeper into this observation and look at the controversial provision of Article 356 due to which the High Court could make such an observation.
Historical background of the article
- Both India and Pakistan borrowed this provision from the Government of India Act, 1935.
- Interestingly, the leaders of our freedom struggle were so very opposed to this provision that they forced the British government to suspend it.
- The provision which we had opposed during our freedom struggle was incorporated in the Constitution strangely in the name of democracy, federalism and stability.
- It was agreed in the Constituent Assembly that the Governor could use this emergency power.
- By this time the Governor was supposed to be elected by the people of the State rather than nominated by the Centre.
- After several revisions, provision became Article 278 (now Article 356).
The issue with the word ‘otherwise’
- H.V. Kamath criticised the word ‘otherwise’ and said only god knows what ‘otherwise’ means.
- As the Governor had been made a nominee of the Centre by this time, he asked why the President could not have confidence in his own nominees.
- ‘Otherwise’ can include anything including a presidential dream of breakdown of constitutional machinery in a state.
- The Andhra Pradesh High Court could pass such an order due to this very term ‘otherwise’.
- This word negates the ideals of constitutionalism by giving unlimited powers to the Centre, also allowed the High Court to overstepped the line.
- But this is not the first instance of judicial overreach on this issue.
- On August 13, 1997, a Patna High Court had observed that the High Court could also report to the President about the breakdown of constitutional machinery in the State.
Repeated misuse of Article 356
- In the very first invocation of Article 356 in 1951, central government removed the Gopi Chand Bhargava ministry in Punjab though he enjoyed the majority.
- In 1959, it was used against the majority opposition government of the E.M.S. Namboodripad government in Kerala.
- Indira Gandhi used Article 356 as many as 27 times.
- The most notable case of non-use of Article 356 was the refusal of the P.V. Narasimha Rao government prior to the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Consider the question “Examine the contest in which the word ‘otherwise’ in Article 356 leads to judiciary exercising its powers. What are the concerns in such case?”
Conclusion
Ideally, the word ‘otherwise’ should be deleted from Article 356 and the provision be used only sparingly and to never remove a majority government.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Mains level: Paper 2- Reforms in the Governing Council of the Central Universities
Central Universities need reforms in their Governing Councils to make them realise their potential.
Central Universities in the need of reforms
- There are 55 central universities.
- These are endowed with prime land, extensive funding from the central government and there is a long line of students waiting to get in.
- However, they are in turmoil. In recent years, six vice-chancellors (VCs) of central universities have been sacked.
- Some of these institutions have seen their glory days, yet increasingly, the energy is going out of the system.
- However, not a single new private university has so far been able to create a true broad-based Vishwa Vidyalaya with the full range of humanities, social and natural sciences, and professional disciplines.
- Therefore, to save academia in India, central universities must be saved.
Organizational structure
- Each of the 55 central universities is governed by a separate Act. but the broad structure is as follows.
- The Visitor of the university is the President of India.
- On his behalf, the Ministry of Education recommends an eminent citizen as the chancellor, whose role is mostly ceremonial.
- The Ministry also constitutes a search committee for the post of VC, which comes up with a list of 3 candidates.
- From this list, the government picks a VC.
- Separately, and through a different process, the governing council (GC) is chosen.
- The governing council (GC) of the university usually have nominees from various stakeholders, including the government, faculty, students, and citizens.
- The university’s work is carried out by the executive council chaired by the VC, who also appoints the registrar.
- A separate finance committee is constituted, headed by a chief finance officer, who is often a civil servant on secondment to the university.
- This arrangement is designed to maintain financial checks and balances.
Issues with the governance
- The GC has no say in the selection of the VC.
- The GC typically meets only once a year and its size is usually very large.[Delhi University has 475 members]
- In theory, the VC presents and gets approval for the annual plan of the university from the GC.
- In practice, after much grandstanding on both sides, the plan is rubberstamped.
- After that, throughout the year, there is the minimal direction or monitoring from the GC, which may or may not meet again.
- There are typically no quarterly updates, and there is little oversight.
- Under the circumstances, the high number of failures should not come as a surprise, since effectively, there is minimal governance.
Comparing with provisions in IIM Bill
- The new IIM Bill very sensibly limits the GC to at most 19 members.
- They are expected to be eminent citizens, with broad social representation and an emphasis on alumni.
- This GC chooses the director, provides overall strategic direction, raises resources, and continuously monitors his or her performance.
- Within the guidelines provided by the GC, the director has full autonomy but also full accountability.
Way forward
- The governing councils of all central universities, IITs, and all other central institutions, need to be restructured by an Act of Parliament.
- The most eminent alumni of these institutions must be brought on their boards.
- The dynamism and exposure that these alumni bring to the table will promptly lead to world-class innovations.
Conclusion
To allow central universities, the IITs and other public institutions to truly blossom, we need to reform their Governance. There is no time to waste.
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